Mark Shutock

Keep Your Team Flying with Training

Common Barriers to Successful Team Communication

Teams that communicate effectively achieve better results because well-informed team members know what’s expected of them.

Decision-making is more effective when decisions are based on collaboration and shared information. Members of teams work better together because they feel like partners instead of hired hands; they feel like they have voices in the organization and get a say in how things are done.  

Better communication can even lead to reduced turnover and better retention; people are more likely to stay at an organization and contribute their ideas if they feel like they are being heard.

Today, we have more communication tools than ever before, yet there seems to be a growing sense of disconnection.  Many employees are now working remotely, and in many cases electronic communications have replaced face-to-face interactions.  The global environment adds the impact of distance along with cultural and language barriers.   These factors, coupled with continual and rapid change, create significant challenges to effective communication.

In my interactions with small- to medium-sized clients, I have consistently found four chronic communications gaps.  Correcting these deficiencies can enhance communication and enhance performance and employee satisfaction. These four areas include:

• Failing to Communicate—because employees are so well-connected and technology savvy, we assume they know more than they actually do.  As a result of this assumption, we fail to pass on critical information.  Sometimes we forget to include key people in the information flow, and in other cases, we simply forget to inform staff of changes.  A lack of information may cause errors and rework, poor decision-making, missed opportunities and employee frustration.
  
  
• Deliberately Withholding Information—failing to communicate may be unintentional, but the deliberate withholding of information can be disastrous.  For example, a leader or a group may withhold information because they perceive it as “confidential.”  In other cases, groups fail to communicate with other groups because of loyalty to their team.  Individuals may withhold information because they feel that sharing their knowledge increases their vulnerability to be laid off or terminated.  Other times, individuals don’t share information because they feel that their ideas may be ridiculed or ignored.  Whenever information is deliberately withheld, it minimizes the effectiveness of team communication.
  
  
• Not Using the Right Medium—we often fail to use the right medium to convey the message that we are sharing with others. For example, e-mail may be preferred because it’s the easiest or most convenient method.  But e-mail isn’t always the best way to communicate, especially when dealing with complex concepts.  Choosing the right communication tool is a key to successful team communication.
  
  
• Failing to Consider Interpersonal Relationships—if we don’t think before we speak, we may say hurtful things that can damage the self-esteem of colleagues.  Inappropriate body language, like rolling your eyes at someone’s idea that you don’t agree with, could also adversely affect relationships. When we fail to consider personal needs, the focus may be on the shortcomings of the interpersonal relationships, and not on understanding what’s being said.

The presence of these communication problems can have a profound impact on the effectiveness of team communications and can hinder morale and decrease productivity; in fact, communications is usually high on the list of organizational problems cited by most organizations with whom I have worked.  In my next Insight, I will outline some of the steps you can take to eliminate these problems and become a more effective communicator.

 

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